Liberty: n. (political and/or social) and/or economic freedom to pursue a goal(s) but limited by laws and morality

Liberty and freedom are frequently confused as being one and the same meaning wise. Total political freedom is anarchy and liberty is the freedom to function within the law.

Even most libertarians who believe in minimum government and optimal social freedom believe that some social laws must exist to avoid anarchy and that a military and police force is necessary to protect a nation from invasion and from the criminals within it.

The historical slogan “give me liberty or give me death” properly rephrased would be “give me freedom or give me death” but even here the slogan is an absurdity because properly understood it would mean “give me anarchy or give me death”.

One human’s liberty is frequently another human’s oppression since the oppressiveness of laws is a matter of social debate and personal opinion. Optimizing freedom and living with acceptable liberty is going to be debated as long as tyranny does not triumph over a nation. Once tyranny puts a stranglehold on free discussion of political power, liberty is what the government says it is and the ruled humans within the nation are no longer in a position to change anything politically.

Liberty can also be thought of as the freedom from oppressive laws but oppression is very subjective and liberty would not be clearly defined. Oppression is everywhere from big government to big money, international banks, and corporations.

My major concern is the oppression from big agriculture and big pharma which is resulting in an unhealthy food supply and hundreds of drugs with unhealthy side effects which are ruining the health of millions of humans. Smaller organic farms and the use of drugs primarily only in life threatening situations, operations, debilitating diseases, and debilitating contagious diseases would go a long way towards improving the health of humans.

The conservation of biodiversity is vital if human civilization is to survive in the long duration and the world should not be in frontier mode destroying more and more wilderness. International and national laws must be changed to ensure the survival of wilderness and result in more just international trade.

True liberty is not one of the two extremes which is a law for everything or no laws at all or absolute freedom. True liberty is optimizing the just laws and minimizing the corrupt or unjust laws, especially special interest laws which favor select groups of the rich and powerful and do not promote the general welfare and individual meritorious behavior.

Liberty with just laws is what the oppressed dream of but never seem to be able to get realistically because big money rules supreme and there is no official accepted political morality which governs the formation of just laws for all citizens.

As long as politics is not guided by a common morality acceptable to all humans and as long as this common morality is no longer taught to impressionable young minds in elementary school, social corruption will increase rather than decrease and tyrannical rule is just around the corner when society can no longer interact peacefully but must be governed with force and the threat of force.

Just liberty must be grounded in a just morality and until we start teaching this morality worldwide, the world will just get more corrupt and unstable politically and even militarily.

The destruction of biodiversity must be excluded, lying and deception must not be tolerated publicly and should be ostracized privately, inefficiency must be minimized, stealing must be minimized, adultery outlawed, and murder minimized for true just liberty to reign supreme. No society will be totally just but an immoral society will not last and must ultimately be replaced by tyranny or rule by fear or the fear of punishment, death, and incarceration.

When most citizens can no longer trust one another to behave morally, peaceful human interaction breaks down and an oppressive veil of distrust and fear covers humanity.

Yes, morality is essential to liberty even though in the west personal morality is often a little different than someone else’s morality. State sponsored religious morality with laws reflecting that morality exists but unfortunately it oppresses the free practice of differing religions and personal moralities. 

That is why it is essential that one universal secular morality exists which is worldwide. My recommendation is-in non emergency situations-don’t destroy biodiversity, don’t lie, don’t be inefficient, don’t steal, don’t commit adultery if married, and don’t murder!!!!!!

My evergreen truth books address these problems and offer solutions and the most important one is JUSTICE.

If you liked this evergreen truth blog then read more of them, about 1000 so far, or read one or more of my evergreen truth books, especially COMMON SENSE, rays of truth in a human world filled with myths and deceptions.

For a complete readily accessible list of blogs and titles go to twitter.com/uldissprogis.

Enjoy!!!!!!